QA/Test Engineer

Job details

Contingent Role

$60 – $90 per hour

This is a full-time W-2 opportunity with Cincinnatus LLC. As part of this role, you may be staffed as a contractor with a leading technology company.

Location: United States

Description

Join a leading AI lab’s cutting-edge GenAI team to be at the core of the AI revolution, where your expertise fuels the development of the most advanced AI models.

1. Overview

A leading AI lab is building the next generation of agentic evaluation benchmarks for frontier models, and complex multi-step tasks are only useful if they are airtight: unambiguous, correctly graded, and robust to shortcuts. We are seeking experienced QA and test engineers to be the quality backbone of this benchmark — designing the test cases and review processes that guarantee every task measures what it claims to measure.

Each task under review represents one to two days of expert effort and spans multiple technical skills, so quality review here means genuinely understanding the task: running it, probing its edge cases, and debugging its environment. You will work in a tight feedback loop with the lab’s researchers and task authors.

This is a full-time W-2 employment position with Cincinnatus LLC, with the opportunity to be placed at a leading AI lab as part of their extended workforce. This role is fully remote within the United States, at approximately 35 hours per week.

2. Key Responsibilities

• Design checks: Create test cases that confirm each task works as intended — including the tricky edge cases.
• Review tasks: Give tasks and reference solutions a careful read before they’re finalized, catching ambiguity and gaps early.
• Debug: Roll up your sleeves in Python when a task or its checks don’t behave the way they should.
• Shape the process: Help build simple, repeatable quality checklists, and share feedback authors can act on right away.
• Protect the results: Watch for shortcuts and grading gaps in AI agent runs so benchmark scores stay trustworthy.

3. Core Qualifications

• MSc or PhD in a STEM field, or equivalent practical experience in a research-heavy or engineering-heavy domain.
• 1+ years of experience in test engineering, quality assurance, or a research/software engineering role with strong quality ownership.
• Demonstrated skill designing test cases and quality-review processes, and debugging complex systems end-to-end.
• Working proficiency in Python and Git, and comfort navigating unfamiliar codebases and environments.
• Exceptional attention to detail and clear written documentation habits.
• Past experience in AI training, model evaluation, or quality review of AI-generated work is preferred.
• A perfectionist mindset: creativity in finding what others missed, and the ability to work independently through ambiguous, open-ended problems.
• Ability to engage reliably for approximately 35 hours per week.

About Cincinnatus LLC

Cincinnatus LLC is an enterprise staffing company that partners with leading technology companies to source and employ highly skilled professionals for contingent and contract-based opportunities. Cincinnatus serves as the employer of record for these engagements, providing W-2 employment, payroll, benefits, and compliance, while placing employees directly within client teams to work on high-impact initiatives.

Roles hired through Cincinnatus are not project-based or freelance engagements. They are structured, role-based positions that typically involve part-time or full-time commitments, close collaboration with a client’s internal teams, and integration into standard enterprise workflows.

Cincinnatus is a legal entity separate from Mercor. While opportunities may be discovered through Mercor’s platform, employment, onboarding, payroll, and benefits for these roles are administered by Cincinnatus LLC.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Cincinnatus is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Cincinnatus is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans throughout the job application process.

We consider all qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics and provide reasonable accommodations upon request.

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